Shaquille O’Neal is a well-known figure across the basketball community. After all, he had an illustrious and dominant career when playing in the NBA and found an incredible amount of success. Even after his retirement from the league, Shaq continued to expand his business empire and currently has a net worth of around $450 million.
This is an imposing amount to most people across the world, with the exception of billionaires such as Jeff Bezos. To fans who do not know, Bezos is the executive chairman of Amazon and has a ridiculous net worth of around $140 billion.
Bezos’ dominance and experience in the field of business make even Shaq look quite ordinary in comparison. Therefore, it was no surprise when O’Neal decided to implement some advice he heard from the multi-billionaire. Let us take a closer look and find out more.
Jeff Bezos encouraged Shaquille O’Neal to invest with the intent of changing lives
People who grew up in financially poor backgrounds inadvertently value money and look to discipline themselves by saving it. However, this is not the same game that the wealthy powerful people engage in. The smartest businessmen are always on the lookout for products or ideas to invest in. By doing so, they will be making great returns on their investment and also be supporting a product or cause that they believe in.
The Los Angeles Lakers legend revealed that he decided to apply Bezos; investment principle when he heard a speech from the Chairman of Amazon during a tech conference in Vegas. O’Neal later revealed the lesson he took away from Bezos’ speech during an interview with CBNC.
“I was at a tech conference in Vegas and I heard the great Jeff Bezos say ‘If you invest in things, it’s going to change people’s lives,’ you will definitely get a nice return.”
Shaq went on to share more about his own perspective on this notion, Never think about the monetary aspect … it’s not important to me…“It’s basically based off one principle — belief. [Do] you believe in the product? Is it gonna change people’s lives? … That’s what it is about for me.”
O’Neal also revealed that most ideas that float by his desk end up getting rejected for a variety of reasons. Nonetheless, he is more than likely to invest in a product if he believes it will have some positive impact on society. This is an investing principle he learned from Jeff Bezos.